NEWS: Supporters Forum representatives vote now open

Voting closes on Sunday, 16th September...

5 September 2018

Mark Hornby

The elections for representatives on the Coventry City Supporters Forum are now open.

Votes are being held for Season Ticket holder representatives for Over 30s and Under 30s. One application was received for the Corporate Season Ticket holder representative, and therefore a vote is not necessary.

We have been delighted to receive so many applications for the important roles, and the time and effort that supporters have put into their applications too.

The vote is now open to Season Ticket holders ONLY, with only fans in the appropriate category able to vote in that category (e.g. Only Under 30s can vote in the Under 30s category).

Fans can vote until midnight on Sunday 16th September, with one vote per person.

Vote by emailing customer.service@ccfc.co.uk – with subject ‘VOTE’. In your email, please state your name, supporter number, and the name and category of the person you are voting for.

Fans will also be able to vote by filling out a voting form in the Ticket Office at Butts Park Arena.

Season Ticket Holder representative - Over 30:

Name – Brett Woodward Age – 32 First Coventry City game – home Vs Norwich – September 1992 Seat Location – Block 23

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum – Wanting to help the club improve performance on and off the pitch, and feel that my balanced view may help

How you intend to represent supporters – Presenting a balanced view across many platforms of CCFC fans. Being a member on Facebook groups, Online Forums, and Twitter helps me garner the many varying views of each platform, and I feel my sense of balance and fairness could be vital when applied.

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum - Firstly I love the club & want all fans to have the best experience & strongest connection with the club as possible. I feel that my views would offer a mature, pragmatic perspective for the club. I’m a headteacher who travels home & away to support the team, endlessly optimistic, full of good ideas, listen to all perspectives well & can articulate my views well.

How you intend to represent supporters - I attend most matches (made 50 last season) and talk, meet, listen to others in person and on social media - I would express my own views with practical suggestions incorporating the views of others too. If I’m expected to feedback to supporters I can do that; communication is part of my day job as a headteacher after all.

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum - my family has a long heritage with the club with my great grandfather being Chairman in the 50’s. I attend games with my father and children aged 21, 13 and 8 who are season ticket holders.

How you intend to represent supporters - I believe I am well placed given the heritage and demographic age range that I attend Home and away games to represent the opinions of all supporters ages.

Name: David Percival Age: 52 years old

I’m a season ticket holder in the east stand and travel to home and away matches regularly with my partner Linda breeds also a season ticket holder.

would be superb to be considered for the Supporters Forum

I’m also a member of the Leamington and Warwick Coventry City supporters club .

In support of my application I would like to offer a sensible and reasoned link between the fans and the club. I feel that I would be able to articulate the general feeling of fans regarding the day to day running of the club together with its overall long term ambitions and objectives.

Coventry City Football Club means a lot to every stakeholder and managing the ambitions and expectations of each interested party is a difficult task, however I do consider myself to be a person who is open to listen and process all representations, together with my own thoughts and ideas, before forming a balanced view based on the facts provided.

Together with no doubt a large number of other supporters I would appreciate the opportunity to be part of a closer relationship with the club so we can work towards to the shared goal of rising together.

It would be my intention to share the general and specific views of myself, family, friends and fellow supporters of Coventry City who I am in regular contact with at matches and socially with the group. Since the prominence of social media, I consider that it is sometimes too easy to publically criticise the action of the club without first obtaining any knowledge or understanding of the facts. By being appointed to the supporters forum I believe I would represent the silent majority of season ticket holders and supporters who do not always feel able to represent their personal views on an open social media platform.

Reasons for joining the forum - To be more involved with the club and help in any way possible building bridges between the fans and the club. I would give an honest opinion along with being a vocal representative for the fans.

Name: Clark EnnisAge; 35First Coventry City game; Coventry City vs Arsenal Jan 1995 (12 years old), this was my first ever live football match and I was taken by the father of one of my school friends who was an Arsenal supporter. Before the match I was bought a half and half scarf and went to the match expecting to cheer on Arsenal. Coventry lost that day 0-1 and I left there as a fully fledged Coventry City supporter!Seat Location - Block 1, row P seat 4. My children, Oliver Ennis (aged 8) is in seat 5 and my youngest son Henry (aged 5) is in seat 6.

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum - The lifeblood of the football club is the supporters who watch, cheer and follow Coventry City. It is imperative to the future success of the club that clear, concise, 2-way feedback and communication happens on a consistent basis. There is a strong core following and it is important that this collective remain engaged and feel a part of the community and have a voice to assist in the success of the club. We do however also need to reach out to existing supporters who may not have renewed season tickets, supporters that attend numerous matches without season tickets, and those supporters who attend few matches or follow the club from afar. All of our recent successes at Wembley highlight what a great fan base this club has! My children have started to watch football and follow Coventry City so this year I have purchased them a season ticket alongside myself. My eldest had the opportunity to be a mascot last year and the enthusiasm this has created was infectious to my youngest child and has actually converted two of his school friends to follow Coventry, as their local club, instead of Chelsea and Manchester United!. Over the years my love for the club has never dwindled however it has been difficult at times to comprehend, or understand the true reasoning for some strategic decisions, as a director within a large organisation I understand how this can happen. Effective communications that clearly demonstrate the reasoning and rationale for key decisions, even if they are not unanimously popular at times, certainly helps manage and maintain trust with the club. It is my belief that stronger 2-way communications with the core season ticket holder collective will add value by generating suggestions as well as enhancing the relationship felt towards the leadership of the club. The club is on an upward trajectory with a lot of positivity and I want to help maintain this and drive it further forward.

How you intend to represent supporters - My aspiration is to enable all season ticket holders with a voice to provide feedback, offer suggestions and be able to feel a part of the club. Our season ticket holders in particular invest heavily into the club each year and it is important that this collective can feel rewarded and valued for the commitment given. Community forums provide a structured way for the consolidated messaging to be presented to the clubs leaders however I want to ensure that I obtain feedback from all supporters in order to maximise the forum's potential. Developing a communications forum, utilising available technology, in order to structure communications to take forward to the forum is a key objective. It is however important (for example on match days) that there is an opportunity for season ticket holders to communicate with myself directly, especially as a community web based forum may not be the preferred method for all. Following all forum's I will ensure that feedback is provided, and messaging shared, to ensure ultimate transparency and engagement,, "the effectiveness of communication is not defined by the communication, but by the response" (Milton Erickson).

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum; My main motivation for wanting to join the forum is that I’ve decided it is about time that I stopped moaning, got off my backside and did something for my football club. I am typical of thousands of fellow supporters in that I had become disillusioned and apathetic towards the club and where we are today. I have seen so many supporters walk away over the years and not come back but we are now seeing the green shoots of recovery, I want to be part of this. I want to be part of shaping the future of Coventry City and it’s relationship with the fans. I believe that I can add something to this improving relationship between club and fans. I have supported this club since my first game over 55 years ago and have sky blue blood in my veins. Over the years I have missed very few home games but do not get to many away games these days mainly due to health issues and lack of finance. I believe I am one of the so called silent majority of City fans who deserve to have a voice.

How do I intend to represent supporters; First and foremost by listening to people to get their views and opinions. This begins with my family. My Wife, Son, Daughter, Grandson, Brother In Law and Nephew all have season tickets with me. We all have our own views on what should and should not happen at the club as do the other supporters we sit with and talk to at games. They deserve to have their voices heard and to get some assurance that we are moving in the right direction. The other group of people I talk to are the lapsed supporters such as my Brother and other friends who gave up their season tickets when we moved to Northampton and have never come back. I have to constantly defend the club and my continuing support to them. They need to come back into the fold. I hope that by promoting a positive image of the club I can help to bring them back.

Supporting information; I am now retired and so have time to devote to a cause close to my heart. During my working life I sat on numerous committees such as the Consultative Committee of the Faculty of Business at Tile Hill Collage, the Patients Panel of my GP Practice, I was Treasurer of the Central England Safety Officers Group and was Vice Chair of Governors at a Coventry School. I played and managed a Sunday League team for many years, I played on till I was 40.

Reasons for wanting to be a Sky Blues supporter representative are.......wanting to keep Sky Blues in Coventry.......give supporters and fans a fair deal and fair view......to promote Sky Blues in the community.

To help raise club profile in community and schools......to try to keep gates at a good level 're Coventry economic level.

Bring supporters closer to the football club.....e.g. more football forums and kids for quid.

Name - James Darlaston Age - 34 First Coventry City game - V’s Southampton at Highfield Road 1990, think it was 1-1, can’t really remember much other than a bloke in front of me smoking a pipe and me moaning to my Dad all game about it. Seat Location - Block - Level 1 Box

Reasons for wanting to join the Forum - I’ve always been passionate about Coventry City and always supported the club. I’ve been going from a young age, as a JSB member to home and away games, and want the club to continue this rise back to where we belong and the fans deserve. Take last year for example, I was supposed to be in Brazil (Rio) on the day of the Checkatrade cup final, and as at the time I thought Cov being at Wembley would be a once in a lifetime opportunity, I booked additional flights home (for me and my Mrs) the day before that would get me back to Heathrow for 10am so I could see the game, costing me just over £1k, and slight disbelief from the other half..... we got to the airport, got on the plane and took off, everything was going to plan, great South America trip that was to be finished by watching Cov at Wembley.... an hour into the flight and the plane wobbles quite bad with a few people screaming. I only had Cov at Wembley on my mind. The pilot comes on the speaker and announces that the left engine has stopped and that we’re now running on one engine so will have to do a U-turn and land back at Rio as we’re only an hour into the flight! We Landed and sat on the runway for 4 hours. We had to disembark, get our luggage and go to the airline counter to see what could be done.... i tried several airlines in a desperate plea to get back to England, but none could help! We ended up having to stay an additional night and ended up on the same flight back as I already had tickets for, on the day of the final!! I missed the lot and was heartbroken.

How you intend to represent supporters - I feel the key thing I feel that is lacking is honesty and openness between the club and the fans, and this role would enable the fans and club to engage and connect more clear and concise. I’m fully aware that not all information / goings on, can be shared with the fans, but simple things can be. A recent example was La Manga. I attended the pre season tour of Spain, and booked the recommended hotel by the club which was about a 40 minute drive away from La Manga and the friendly itself. Therefore we had to hire a car and drive ourselves to the match as there was no transport provided. Small glitches in communication like this could be avoided. I like the supporters forums where I think it’s the Leamington based supporters often have a couple of players turn up. This is good for the fans, and a great chance to have a good chat with the players. I often see pictures of these events on social media.

Name: Frank AlsopAge 61 My first Coventry game was against Newcastle United back in 1966 I have a season ticket in Block 21 Row LL Seat 28

I have been a supporter of Coventry City for over 50 years now and am deeply saddened by our recent history - although last season was a massive boost for club and supporters alike. I feel although I am very passionate about City I am also very level headed and can see the bigger picture of the various plans and processes going on

Name: Michelle Barford Age: 47 First CCFC Game: A new fan but now a very loyal one. Only been going to games for the last three seasons but I am now a Season Ticket Holder and travel to both home and away games from West Yorkshire missing only 10 games last season due to work commitments. Seat: Block 20 Seat 33

Reason for wishing to join Fans Forum - To become more involved with the club and to give a female prospective in what is mainly a “mans world” which is what I am used to doing in my career after working in the construction industry since 1987 and working my way up the ladder to where I am today. There is currently a very disjointed fan base and I feel it needs pulling together with a calming influence.

I would like to stress at this point that I love my Football Club unequivocally.

My reasons for wanting to join the forum are to help provide fans with a method of communication with the Club. I believe that the Clubs staff work very hard in the background, however this isn’t portrayed to the fans. Vice versa sometimes the fans do raise some valid points and while not every opinion and idea cannot always be captured and discussed at length, creating a Supporters forum will allow fans with chain of communication with their club so ideas can be expressed freely, by representing supporters on the forum I believe I can help create a link between the Club and the supporters.

I have previously and continue to (at time of writing) help represent younger fans in Block 14-16 and have created various links with the Stewarding Staff, as well as CJ at the Sky Blue Trust and Steve Brown who I continue to talk with regularly. If there are issues on match days with fans behaviour I can help get the message across to the fans without causing friction between fans and the stewards, I have continued to do this for approximately 3 - 4 years so that younger fans and stewards can both enjoy Football matches, this method has helped dilute various situations in the past.

As a supporter of the Club for various years and also known as the “drummer in Block 14” I have a rapport with fans of all ages and backgrounds, which means i am well recognised thankfully well liked by most!

How you intend to represent supporters: I wish to give fans a chain of communication with their Club, communication channels have improved over the last 12 months or so, however for the Club to properly strive it requires transparency with its supporters and a better means of communication surrounding high priority issues. I believe I would be well suited to the role as I have a rapport with many fans already, as well as being instantly recognisable, I believe I can take onboard ideas and discuss matters constructively, while also keeping an open mind so that both sides (supporters and Club) can express their views and identify solutions that will benefit all and CCFC as a whole.

Name: Ryan Caffrey Age: 24 Seat Location: lower of block 17 as a Carer for Mr paul froggat First Game: Around 99/00 season as a jsb back at highfield road

I want to join forum as ccfc is at my heart and to be part of a communication between club and fan base which think we can both agree has been missing in recent years but is on the up and exciting times are back up the city.

I'd like to help by bringing fans opinions and ideas as speak to a lot as I attend every home and away game and hope that they can bring more success and build a bigger bond with the club. I hope you consider my application as it would be something I'd love.

Name: Craig Cook Age: 26 First Coventry City Game : Ipswich at home in 2003. We lost 4-2 after going 2-up. Seat Location : Block 15, Row NN

Reasons for wanting to join the forum – I feel I will be a good voice for those fans in my category, I often try and come up with ideas about how to improve atmosphere and the general match day experience for everyone. I could confidentially speak for the young adults of our fan base.

How you would intend to represent supporters – I have a lot of friends who are also season ticket holders, I would encourage them to tell me the things the club are doing well and the things that need improvement. After which I would echo the sentiments to the group.

Corporate Season Ticket holder represenative

Michael Garlick was the only applicant, and therefore appointed to the role.

Disabled Supporter Representative:

Unfortunately there were no applications for this role. Fans interested in this role are asked to email mark.hornby@ccfc.co.uk, stating: